all. coming coming coming. a new report by amnesty international accuses tech giants google and facebook of violating human rights and by employing a surveillance based business models. baby i mean netanyahu is charged with bribery fraud and breach of trust it is the 1st time in israeli history that a sitting prime minister has faced indictment in criminal investigation. a backlash from the jewish community in germany after nazi memorabilia is sold at auction for thousands of euros. terms it is nothing to do the does not do for research of you ever completely to be destroyed. but those are the headlines this hour you can find the full stories on our website i'll be back with a recap of our top stories about an hour's time right now though so if your lips.

and biology are promising to bring about revolutionary changes in the way humans leads and as we learn today how to change our d.n.a. i mean the possible implications are just mind blowing from getting rid of diseases unborn babies today i sat down with revolutionary scientists and molecular engineer dr george church to talk about that. professor george church thank you very much for being on our program today so do you know sequencing and gene editing is something like the internet in the eighty's on the brink to explode those are your words so do you mean to say that soon genome editing will be

just like surfing the news on a sunday morning with a cup of coffee. it's possible i mean it's hard to rule out that scenario just like there are many. drugs that we pop without prescription that might be one of them right right now let's stop the case but there are many. pharmaceuticals that we take without without thinking about them that much so when you say that you know madigan is on the brink of explosion what exactly do you mean . well as is it is it is both reading and writing of genomes which are intimately connected are on an exponential the brink of explosion they are literally explode if you follow the cost curves there they're doubling in in months not years other way faster than the internet and the computing is. and that change in cost structure and the impact it has on things that we care about the

health of our children themselves that. probably means that will it's also going to ignore well i mean i heard that you could actually conduct genome engineering at home you don't even have to be a scientist to do that right you can just order a desired d.n.a. sample over the internet it's like $10.00 get it delivered i don't inject it if that's the case why don't people lot of fire themselves time to time. of. well you can also order all sorts of chemicals at home too but most people don't have the the know how or the unmet need ok but people do inject themselves with gene therapy is there are a few known cases and probably on the torah level you're on an amateur level people inject themselves with or with maybe some little assistance. outside of the standard biomedical research practice do we know what that has resulted into

i think not much has come of it because. you know for something for most impactful medicines to take root they have to go through clinical trials i do the deal a double blind placebo controlled randomised clinical trials and that is just starting and the amateurs are not in this are likely to influence that would you be open to experimentation on yourself why would you and jack gene fix and tear self and take a risk for the sake of science. yes i mean i am i have been a guinea pig in the research. studies ever since my mother father essentially did mature research on me. which was probably within the law. but i would want to participate in the study that is

a randomized clinical trial something that that has some chance of producing reproducible and useful information not so something where it's a one off on controlled study if we're just doing it to myself so do i understand correctly that you're already been subject to experiments with and i've been a research subject. experiments opposed to a lot of kind of spearmint like we're already changing what happened for example was a little more formal ones started in college and involved as in psychological works berman's was involved in nutrition experiments and. one of the main research subjects in the personal genome projects of so very beginning of the study that i started so have your eyes become blue after that or they've been ever since you're more and i i have not done i'm not aware of the extent of the

effect by color of the putting on contact lenses. but i probably would not participate in that kind of study because i don't see the tremendous benefit serious gene the medical therapy is now very expensive right. the price tag for the recently approved medication that can actually somehow cure an inherited blindness is about like what $1000000.00 and that's something that 99 percent of population can't really afford right now does it make sense to produce something that most of the people would never able to mine. also yes. a $1000000.00 is the cost for of this for gene therapy but for but for a variety of orphan drugs into the orphan drug the united states of things that affect rare diseases and i would certainly i've spent most of my career bringing down the costs of technologies both reading and writing genomes them and now

therapeutics. and that's certainly. my ambition to bring down those costs. you don't want to deprive people of lifesaving treatment if they are part of society can't afford it but i totally agree that the goal should be to make treatments nearly free. and i and by the way gene therapy is not the only way of treating some of these diseases many of these diseases can be prevented by genetic counseling which is not a $1000000.00 but it's closer to 2 $1000.00 but let's talk about the genetic editing a little bit because see how it's right now it's expensive i mean i don't know maybe in 10203050 years time it's going to be affordable for everyone but right now it is very expensive to think terribly can cause this sort of a surge in d.n.a. and create a genetic racism do i mean. already right now there's such a huge gap between rich and poor right so if the rich people are the only ones who can afford those kind of things i mean they will be healthier never die and then

you have you know the rest of the world there are just going to be. deteriorating to see my point i don't think i worry about the same thing do you think so you think you can create that d.n.a. so no i worry russia but i think that i'm not predicting that it will happen i worry about it to prevent it and the way i think we prevent it is well 1st of all it's not racial it's rich versus poor and it's and the cast of people like rich cripple versus poor people and they're always happy and healthy and you know the cast of the poor hurt has unhealthy and dying leg. right so my point is that the solution is is not to say that it's inevitable that there will be this divide it's to say what can we do to bring down the cost and. get education an equitable distribution and we've done that for some technologies for example smallpox affects everybody in the world or all some point 5000000000 people there is no one that is

exempt from that benefit we should have them and vision to do that for every subsequent medical technology and i think we can do it. probably quickly not not 50 years from now but much faster than that so when i say i'm the one working on those things and i'm worried and i want to prevent all of this what exactly do you do to prevent that from happening what i do to prevent it to accelerate the arrival of equitable distribution of new technologies is to bring the cost down so we work to bring the cost of reading genomes down by 3000000 fold the cost of editing is plummeting at the same rate i believe that for most genetic diseases they can be addressed by gene therapy which is more a reading and education problem that editing problem you can many and most of these can be addressed just by knowing your genome. and then another huge topic is age reversal and believes that it's well

a matter of maybe 10 years time that this is going to be really tangible in terms of results what exactly do you mean i mean. are we going to get rid of wrinkles you know. our bodies are going to be more toned all of a sudden when we're 60 we're going to look like we're 20 already talking about internal organs like our heart is going to get better like when we're at 20 or you know i don't blood wessels i don't know i don't consider wrinkles a public health threat so i'm like this because you know what when. i mean i realize the society have that society has biases that can result in difference different economies for the aged and therefore and having no. income could result in poor medical care so it is a health threat. that said i think what we're aiming for an aging risk one is not necessarily a decade away that we've already had evidence for aging reversal in several

different. ways. in mice and so them we're turning those into gene therapies multiple gene therapy is in testing it in predates mice and then praise dogs and then eventually human. and the goal is to to to make us more resilient to damage to our various organ systems. and to deal with the diseases of aging by hitting at the core that makes us. less functional as we get into our eighty's and it was age reversal right now has nothing to do with the way we look at something about making our system our organism more stable healthier and you know. resistant to diseases it could affect the way we look but that's not the objective the objective is to to hit on major organ systems so that really affects your health like your immune system

your heart. prevention of cancer and so forth but you know it's not it's going to be a big topic whether it's going to be only about health or the way it will look you know should do you know getting be limited to just curing illnesses because i mean i'm thinking messing with the in a worse risk for me having a bigger muscle or blue eyes is there a line that we shouldn't cross. when it comes to. you know. i'm not i think we tend to draw lines in the wrong places doesn't mean there isn't a law and order maybe it's blurry was like for example driving a car there is no there's no real physics at 55 mph that is the law that we pass so that arbitrary place along a continuum it is unsafe to go 100 miles an hour. and it's but we set the line at 55 and i think the same thing is true for you know if you.

that we're not going to. if you want a different color hair you your hair most of the things we want to change ourselves for fashion statement or. if we want to be faster then you get a fast car or a jet or you know we don't need to have muscles the average individual is adequate that we can get from one place to another faster. and. faster when we're. sequencing. and if you stay with us.

most people think to stand out in this business you need to be the 1st one on top of the story or the person with the loudest voice of the biggest raid in truth to stand out in the music business you just need to ask the right questions and demand the right answer. question.

and we're back with professor george church talking about gene that professor so do i understand correctly that for you personally that line that shouldn't be crossed is between genome sequencing being used for greater purposes like health purposes but definitely not something that would change the way you look physically from the outside is that fair understand i mean the winds should be drawn out of the safety and efficacy both short and long term we want to make sure that what we're doing doesn't of impact future generations in a negative way it can in fact it can affect future generations but just not in the other way and sometimes as that takes a great deal of discussion in the research to figure out what that means but i would not draw a line. on mentation or appearance because those do affect your your income and hence your health. in there and they can be harmless and they're already

done and so you that if you want to ban those things is beyond all means of achieving them well you should you should prevent society for but to be in discriminating based on beauty rather than a particular way of doing it so we should ban beauty products all source not just once or well ok so you're not very categorical about this but then the other scientists and medical community experts that i've spoken to they're pretty much against. you know that the big the genome sequencing being used in terms of enhancing physical affair is and then you know i always ask them why is it ok to get up and move jobs you know but it's not ok to do that was the question jane editing what's your sense here and what's your answer or. the different answers but what what what what would you say to. you i would say i would say that. there are there are reasons to ban the entire practice across the cross you know an

industry or of the earth because it does consume resources while i'm spending a lot of money. dealing with things that don't affect my health and don't affect my performance so there won't be discriminated against in a society that is based on appearance i could be spent his resources or something else but those resources include all manner of cosmetic surgery of. skin and hair care products and so forth if you don't like the loss of resources than then you should apply it across the board i'm not saying that we should it's not necessarily a harmful thing. maybe we can afford those those those resources just like we have afforded resources that are spent on entertainment and and so forth it it is there is reasons that we want to look our best. because plastic surgery most start with medical purposes like it was like for injured soldiers or

a burns or kids that will be born with birth defects etc and now. it's a nasty headache industry that feeds off people's insecurities that's for so that could happen with the genome that's reckless it was all right we don't want. industries profiting from peoples and securities then we should and every kind of i'm not saying we should ban them i'm saying that if we don't like that waste the resources in that abuse of insecurities then we should ban them not say what my opinion of them to say if the right so all is that we're talking about the g.-net eating and the fact that he can have human health. is this something permanent i mean if you you know the gene at it's somewhat of an instance as this does mean that my child is no longer have inherited disease that i'm just at it or is it just a pliable to myself how does it work can you mostly modify your child while it's

any a woman still. most. awesome so all gene therapy is there in clinical trials right now are on adults or children that are not and and it's not imperative. you could make inherited changes. that's technically possible it's not yet advanced enough that it's up for approval . you have to have a good reason to do it. i mean that's because many things can be can either can be cruel so there are some things that cannot be corrected easily in an adult or a child so you need to do it earlier the earliest in the most preventive would be either by doing that by genetic counseling to avoiding 25 percent of children are born with serious. genetic diseases can be avoided by age so they can also just or a few. people get married and want to have their own children than they ignored the

genetic counseling up to the point that in principle you could do something on their sperm or egg that would prevent them from passing along that disease but the most cost effective than probably psychologically least traumatic is to do it at the matchmaking stage. because i'm thinking of this sometimes people with mental diseases don't know that i have mental this isn't it comes out with aids for instance schizophrenia i mean if you could technically when you say tactically prevent that from being inherited into your kits as a something that's really far away. i would i don't think it's. beneficial to dismiss it as being close i mean it might be close in time it's not a so far away. because if we're going to deal with it we need to. not underestimate how quick how quickly it derived. the i think if we had

a way of avoiding. extreme case of schizophrenia by genetic counseling that would be very advantageous if we could do it with. any kind of preventative medicine that would be better than probably better than a cure or more equal to a cure i want to talk a bit about your new start of. that's very good data information in block change technology right i mean what's the point i mean you hope to encourage people to get their genome sequenced d.n.a. code written out and then share it with the rest of the world. well the whole point is they can avoid sharing their whole genome with anyone including their physicians matchmakers researchers what they can do is give them. part of what they need encrypted form and collect and and combined with many other people's. comparable data such that no one ever has. and that that the fireball piece of

anybody else's genome so that level of security is just now becoming evident how you achieve that and i think it would reassure a number of people. about ways that they can share the things that they would like to share they can now do it securely. in addition there's a way of compensating them for. participating in something to save society a lot of money so for example the 5 percent of children or so forth born severely genetically damaged and you can get everybody to get their own genome sequenced and secure a software that allows them to find out who they can who would be a good match for them and who would not be before they get married you could reduce abortions you can reduce the $1000000.00 costs of dealing with these 5 percent of the image babies and that should be you should be able return it to the people. who

got their genome sequenced so rather than paying $1000.00 for the genome sequence we should pay you $1000.00 to get your genome sequenced so the society avoids having these severely affected children do you ever come across or get in trouble with people who maybe think that you are sort of overstepping humanity's boundaries because you're working with something so big something bigger than us you know like some whatever and say that you're playing with god you know to do you come across that i think that saw. it is a risk but i don't i think in my particular case there's. people see that i'm trying to engage in ethical discussion discussions of the ethics safety for a long term planning trying to have 2 way conversations with broad so

the people of this conversation and i think they respect that and they don't and that they don't think that i'm playing working hard and i'm working as an engineer would do a safety engineer more than thing else so i think that. i'm not trying to reassure you want to actually try to raise the alarms as quickly as i see them and i see them sooner because i'm deep in the trenches were working on the on the next technologies do you feel like maybe society should have certain constraints when it comes to cutting at scientists like you or you know people like you. just because you know you could be for better or for worse changing the way humana works the way humanity is this is not a joke. well yes i i have concern about new technologies and i think society should and i and i try to help them get in gauged in those concerns but we also should

have concerns about doing nothing doing nothing is extraordinarily risky in a world with with some point 5000000000 people and a whole series of ancient technologies that are not necessarily suitable for. the moral. you know there are some people who believe that we are the way we are and there's a reason for it and however many lives we get one or 25000 we should go through each life there way we were born what do you think i mean i've read in one of your interests you have a special condition called narcolepsy would you want to change that in yourself or would you want to keep it the way you are. well i don't think we need to stay the way we are born i mean we in addition to that i will naturally progress. and i think we are there's anything that i mean depends on your definition of nature and

natural i mean some people define nature as that which is not affected by humans well obviously humans are affected by humans we put on clothing we we drive cars we are not accepting our nature are not accepting our ancient nature. that said what i changed my merc not at our current state of knowledge i think in fact i think one of the things we need to be very cautious about is we need loss of diversity we need people that have. problems that they can live with i think that you know when i was younger i had serious dyslexia and i have a bunch of things wrong with me but they were tolerable and if we eliminate people we should eliminate cases where it's intolerable where they would. be in great pain to life but things are tolerable this is part of the richness that makes us great. and willing to accept the burden of my particular problems. and i think we might

even need more diversity. church thanks for this wonderful for this interview with everything thank you. tough and the pull of the highest amount swaying in both recesses. baloch itself

mukti it on. closing this way got to dog so hard not to think of the other dismayed to see the look of a power and i know from the start then if. this is the only thing that we do is music because everybody fights in his way. through our you can feel the fee on this bill frist woody allen you have all the ability to put a hold on the. what i think is this is the fans that is the constant. through. songlines speaks does says only help or hurt the president will hear from some experts on this edition of politicking.

politicking on larry king gordon some on the us and best. and a key figure in the ongoing impeachment inquiry publicly testified before the house intelligence committee does testimony help or hurt the president or change any minds about the impeachment process will begin there with expert panel brant toman a former u.s. attorney for the district of the saw formal legal counsel to the senate judiciary committee he joins us from salt lake city utah and in boston dick mccabe a democratic strategist who worked in the obama administration and is a former speechwriter for. will start with you who benefited the most from the some in testimony the president of the house democrats

. well i think both benefited you know i think certainly that democrats were looking for some line as a key figure to come forward and help give testimony that would fit their theory of the case and i think they got that in part during the testimony throughout the day but i also think that you have some some issues with what it was and what he observed and in my experience larry when i presented a case a criminal case which this is no mistake it's an accusation against the sitting president of crimes that have been committed. by having having a witness you know you're going to get good and bad but what you hope is that that particular witness has information and knowledge that's going to satisfy the elements you have to prove jake how do you read it i think we learned oh.